Category Archives: Resistance

Repent & Resist: Ash Wednesday 2020

Great Plains Repent and Resist Ash Wednesday is quickly approaching!  Contact Rev. Ashley Prescott Barlow-Thompson with any questions.

The purpose of this event is to repent from and reject the Traditional Plan, resisting evil and injustice in whatever forms they present themselves, living faithfully as Christians and Wesleyans and affirming the sacred worth of all persons. Repent and Resist: Ash Wednesday 2020 will be marked with prayer, song, and community on February 26th, 2020 from 8 am to 5 pm. This date marks one year since the official passing of the Traditional Plan as well as Ash Wednesday, which begins our traditional season of repentance.

You can sign up to participate or follow the links below to specific Facebook pages districts have made. If there is not a link, the sign up will help connect you with your district.

  • Blue Rivers: Connection Point, Lincoln, NE
  • Dodge City: online
  • Elkhorn Valley: online
  • Five Rivers: Osborn Chapel, BU Campus
  • Flint Hills: Reading UMC AND College Ave UMC
  • Gateway: Gateway District Office and TBD
  • Great West: online
  • Hays: online
  • Hutchinson: online
  • Kansas City: St. Paul’s UMC
  • Missouri River: Saint Paul Omaha Roth Chapel.
  • Parsons: Wesley UMC
  • Prairie Rivers: led by Michelle Reed & Greg Reed, location TBA
  • Salina: led by Stephanie Johannes & Steve Thompson, location TBA
  • Topeka: Topeka First UMC
  • Wichita West and East: East Heights UMC

GP Repent and Resist: Ash Wednesday 2020 Facebook Page

Repent & Resist: Ash Wednesday 2020 — District Organizers Needed!

Great Plains Repent and Resist Ash Wednesday is looking to solidify leaders from each district (especially Elkhorn Valley, Great West, Hays, and Hutchinson) who will be willing to help lead this important action in the new year! A District Organizer is someone who is willing to: 

  • Find a location for this act of repentance to happen on Ash Wednesday
  • Find individuals and churches to participate on Ash Wednesday
  • Host or find leaders to host the act of repentance
  • Be in touch with Rev. Ashley Prescott Barlow-Thompson as needs arise

District Organizers have received a welcome packet detailing how to get started on finding locations and welcoming people to sign up. In January, they will receive a resource packet with worship ideas, hourly themes for each hour of Repent and Resist and more information on hosting this powerful event. 

Check out our facebook page to find out more about leading in your district and contact Rev. Ashley Prescott Barlow-Thompson at ashleypbt@gmail.com to sign up. We’d love two organizers in every district and many of our districts are in need of one or more leaders!

#ResistHarm Kickoff January 4–5, 2020

The Traditional Plan goes into effect on January 1, 2020. We at GP UMCNext are partnering with Mainstream UMC and our GP Reconciling Churches for a #ResistHarm Kickoff on Jan. 4, 2020 to gather for Epiphany worship at Topeka Countryside UMC at 10am and bless the letters we have written to Bishop Saenz. Then we will take a trip to the Great Plains Conference office to deliver the letters.

Is Topeka too far of a drive on Saturday, or are you looking for more ways to participate? On Sunday, January 5, the national #ResistHarm movement invites all congregations and communities to take pictures of themselves, their classes, or congregations holding #ResistHarm signs and post them on social media with the hashtag #ResistHarm. You can create your own Resist Harm 8.5 x 11 and 11 x 17 signs by downloading files, banners, and other resources from our Communication Tools.

Letter Writing Campaign

We ask you to write letters sharing your voice and respectfully disagreeing with the Bishop’s recent decision to follow through on all charges and complaints submitted to him.

On Monday November 11, Bishop Saenz issued a letter to the Great Plains conference regarding LGBTQ ordination, same-gender weddings, and the implementation of the Traditional Plan beginning January 1. He wrote about the process of charges, complaints, and trials to provide clarity and information. He does see the process of complaints and charges as divisive, having adverse impacts, and drawing us away from the mission. Even so, he writes that he is bound by the discipline and will “respond to all complaints that are submitted” according to the church processes he vowed to follow in his consecration.

We respect his episcopal authority. We empathize with the difficulty of guiding and pastoring the entirety of the Great Plains, the whole divided, beautiful, painful, transformative, and tense bunch of us. We also disagree with his decision to process complaints submitted around LGBTQ ordination and same-gender weddings. He asks all sides to have patience. He asks for folks to prayerfully consider before filing any charges and for folks to “wait with hope until after General Conference to celebrate same-gender marriages.” In twenty years, 5 months may feel like nothing. But we know it won’t really be 5 months. Most GC 2020 legislation submitted involves another called GC in the following years. Which General Conference are our LGBTQ siblings supposed to wait for to get married in the church that baptized them? Which General Conference is our LGBTQ siblings called into ministry supposed to wait for to have the permission to exist authentically? To quote the Rev. Dr. King, who knew the pain of the word ‘wait,’ “we must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”

We ask you to write letters respectfully disagreeing with Bishop Saenz’s decision. We believe the least harmful path and most fruitful use of time is not having trials and not receiving complaints centered on same-sex weddings and the sexual orientation of clergy. We have included a sample letter and writing guide for your use. While making the ask, the most important thing you can do in this letter is tell your story. Share your narrative. Give the Bishop your voice to hold in his heart and mind.

Please send letters to the address below, postmarked by December 20. The letters will be kept safe at that central hub and then hand delivered when the conference office opens after the start of the new year.

Letter Writing Campaign
c/o Countryside UMC
3221 S.W. Burlingame Rd.
Topeka, KS 66611

Link: Sample Letter and Guide

Contribute to “You Are Set Free” Mosaic

This invitation comes through collaboration that is happening with Reconciling Church pastors in the South Central Jurisdiction. Our Great Plains contact for more information is Rev. Jill Sander-Chali of College Hill UMC in Wichita.

What is “You are Set Free?”

“You Are Set Free” is a multi-media project to bring to clarity that faces and stories of those that have been kept bent over by the UMC through its stance of incompatibility. The word of Christ to us, as it was to the bent over woman in Luke 13, is “You are set free”. Free from that language; free from that burden; free from that definition! In your freedom, we are asking you to stand up tall in your identity as beloved children of God and tell the UMC: “We belong to God! We belong in the church! We are set free!”

A photo mosaic (like the example) is being created of the story of the bent over woman from Luke 13, using pictures of LGBTQIA+ and reconciling community members within the UMC. The goal is to print an image large enough to be seen from any seat within the bar of any annual conference session. The scale required to accomplish this means that upwards of 13,000 images are needed. The photo mosaic will be created and assembled in Houston and is being designed to break down and travel. The goal is to have it ready in time for GC 2020, after which it will travel to Houston for display at the Annual Conference of the Texas Annual Conference. The piece will then be available to any church (conference/group) wishing to display it in support of full inclusion in the church. We have requested it for Great Plains Annual Conference and are waiting to hear if that is a possibility. However, 13,000 images is a massive number and we need your help!!

What We Need From You

The creation of this piece rests on the faces of those we are hoping to see within it. We are asking you to send in a picture of yourself, a loved one, a friend. The goal is to gather the faces of those who have been affected by the harmful stance of the UMC and put them together so that all can see the beauty that is Christ’s church on earth. Send in more than one! Selfies, portraits, directory photos, holiday photos, vacation snapshots. Show how you are living your free self. If you like, there is also a place to tell your story. You can write about your journey within your faith and the church. Tell about the wedding you wanted, but didn’t get to have. Tell about your joys and sorrows. These stories will be gathered into a book that will travel with the piece. Lastly, you are invited to send a donation of $1 per picture to help offset the cost of the project. Don’t have a dollar? That’s okay, send us your picture and story anyway. Don’t want to share your story? No problem, just send in a picture. Have more than a dollar? Fantastic!

Use this link to send a picture, donate a dollar (or more) and share your story.

For those wondering:
Last names will not be used in the story book; only first names. Names of children will only be used if you give permission. If you have foster children or children but you want to keep their faces anonymous, take a picture from the back and let us know in the comments so the artists can protect their identities.

Link: You Are Set Free

Repent and Resist: Ash Wednesday 2020

As Advent draws near, Great Plains Repent and Resist Ash Wednesday is looking to solidify leaders from each district who will be willing to help lead this important action in the new year! A District Organizer is someone who is willing to:

Find a location for this act of repentance to happen on Ash Wednesday
Find individuals and churches to participate on Ash Wednesday
Host or find leaders to host the act of repentance
Be in touch with Rev. Ashley Prescott Barlow-Thompson as needs arise

District Organizers will receive a welcome packet at the end of November detailing how to get started on finding locations and welcoming people to sign up. In January, they will receive a resource packet with worship ideas, hourly themes for each hour of Repent and Resist and more information on hosting this powerful event.

Check out our facebook page to find out more about leading in your district and contact Rev. Ashley Prescott Barlow-Thompson at ashleypbt@gmail.com to sign up. We’d love two organizers in every district and many of our districts are in need of one or more leaders!

Link: GP Repent and Resist: Ash Wednesday 2020 Facebook Page